Woxin me woxin you

[flemmings]

The Woxin English subtitles are neither as good as they could be nor as bad as they might well have been, which is gain as these things go. Workmanlike, a little idiosyncratic, but not painful; or not painful to one who can't appreciate a word of the dialogue.

However the delicate swelling Swan Lake 'love's young dream' music that heralded Gou Jian's first appearance made me very happy for all sorts of wrong reasons. Hence my new Gou Jian icon, stolen from rasetsunyo's stills.

Comments

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Workmanlike is good, considering just how bad it could be. Though I am rather curious about how they treat first-person pronouns; all flattened to I?

Oooh pretty icon. :D

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

All flattened to I, and what sounds to me like various forms of Yes all flattened to yes.

Thanks. It's all your own work, m'dear.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Understandable, I suppose. Referring to oneself in third person sounds Elmo-ish in English, and it'd be strange and cumbersome to constantly go "this old official" or "this unparalleled personage" for example.

Although to me there are important differences between yes, indeed, and I hear and obey. Though doubtless it is unfair to render short compact 诺 as pompous I hear and obey. Ehh English.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

'Understood' or 'at once' would do as well. There are workarounds for the other stuff (and I've used them all ^^;;) but they don't fit the brevity necessray for subtitles. Is the problem with formal English.

Is why I still would like to see the Japanese subs if any and ever. I know I'm missing vast amounts of stuff through this barebones English.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

Be careful what you wish for! They might turn it into anime, and then where would all of us be? =D

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

where would all of us be?

Deeply horrified fascinated by the crack (http://www.koutetsu-sangokushi.jp/file/jsp/index.html), presumably.

(apologies for intrusion, but this series looks most interestingly unlike the Moral Education-version we learned in conjunction with the titular proverb in grade school.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

(Hey, you're a friend. Always welcome to join the conversations around here.)

When mauvecloud was posting scans of that, I had to look away and hide my eyes. Ahh, Japanese anime- equal opportunity travesties. We rape everyone's culture and especially our own. (I'll point out that Disney does the same but the way the Japanese do it is always pornier more fun.)

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

*weeps horrified tears*

YOU ARE CORRECT. IT IS MUCH, MUCH MORE INTERESTING. And slashy. And also pretty.

(If you are anywhere near the LRD i can lend you my copy. Or if you don't mind the hideous streaming time it's on tudou (http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/476809). I need to get as many people into this series as possible, THEN WE CAN ALL SQUEE TOGETHER BAHAHA.)

(also would you mind terribly if i friended you? :D)

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Oh damn broken link. Here (http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/476809/#).

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE CORRECT. IT IS MUCH, MUCH MORE INTERESTING. And slashy. And also pretty.


We'd better start specifying which series we're talking about here, because now I'm talking about Koutetsu and Woxin simultaneously.You mean Woxin up there, right? Or does THE CAPS part refer to Koutetsu, 'cause it *could*.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Lol Woxin originally, but it's true they do apply to *both* series. O_o

Koutetsu does weird things to my brain. I prefer to regard it not for the sake of my sanity.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Something of my reaction. At least until I've read the thing and have a better grasp of its ethos than either the classic approach of 'Boring Fat Beards in Chiiiina' or the more recent, lamentable 'great purple Cow Pee wielding his double blades.'

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! Tudou takes time, but it looks worth it - I forgot that Chen Daoming was Qin Shihuang, yes.

(Friend away! I hope you're OK with me friending back?)

it's true they do apply to *both* series.

ahaha yes yes.

Three Kingdoms is fair game for everyone! AFAIK The story of Gou Jian et al has not quite penetrated the Japanese pop culture (shame, that) although the subject matter is certainly appropriate to the national consciousness (exchange of royal hostages, Bizarre Honourable Acts, woman-as-trap, and delayed!revenge after years of humiliation).

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

I hope you're OK with me friending back?

Of course!

it looks worth it

It's great, I look forward to hearing your thoughts. 8D

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

(exchange of royal hostages, Bizarre Honourable Acts, woman-as-trap, and delayed!revenge after years of humiliation).

Don't forget the unspoken but palpable emotional connection between the protags, Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin variety. Don't yet know if it's 'the lion I am proud to hunt' or 'damned Nobunaga *again*' but I shall find out.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

Oh lord. Er. Check out mauvecloud's recent posts on the thing (http://mauvecloud.livejournal.com/tag/koutetsu+sangokushi), if you have not already done so. I am staying far, far away.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

OK DED NOW KTHNX. Now I know why I didn't click the link on the original site.

LIU BEI asdj;ldkkl;ll

Excuse me while I go scrub my eyeballs.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Their Liu Bei was uhh 'special' I think is the word. I mean, it's like doing an anime about a bunny rabbit looking for a home and calling the bunny Liu Bei. (And the clever owl is Zhuge Liang and the fierce wolf is Cao Cao.) What beats me is, as mauvecloud said, the Wind and Tree Song Gilbert rendition.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Oh lord now I remember why he looked so familiar >_<

(Anthropomorphic!Three Kingdoms. Now that is something to see.)

if LRD young'uns receiving their Three Kingdoms moral education will see all these stories in terms of, well, the great purple Cow Pee.

Alas, I wish. Though I think these interludes may have been superseded by an entity known as National Education, with the emphasis on the propaganda National.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Well, there's always Ginga Sengoku Gun'yuuden Rai (http://www.angelfire.com/anime/mangatemple/rai.html) loosely based on Ro3K, with a patented platinum-haired Zhuge Liang type. All the names are changed so I can't say who's equivalent to whom, but one of the superpowers (Wu maybe?) consists of catboys. And there's a tiger general, seen here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE_oCVa1dx8&mode=related&search=) on youtube at the end of this OP sequence.

Heee, adding to the dogpile

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

Uh. I'm turned on by this description of Koutetsu. So wrong, yet so right, ala Elle to Takara

* laments * I've been corrupted by this bishie business. I am not able to find ordinary, good-looking males (such as the Gou Jian in your icon) attractive anymore.

Re: Heee, adding to the dogpile

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

This (http://images.blogcn.com/2007/4/8/12/lanxuesang,20070408222320.jpg) Gou Jian that paleaswater found does nothing for you? Then you are as stone. It's true, though, that one's eye for these things goes in and out of focus. Sometimes the big-eyed pointy-chinned wonders do it, sometimes it's the sensitive dark-eyed petal-skinned Uncle Mings with their carved lips and delicate eyelids uhh is it just me or is it hot in here...?

Re: Heee, adding to the dogpile

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

(Very stony and grumpy)

But the fungus...

Also the epicanthal folds... (This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_blepharoplasty) is a big industry hereabouts.)

Why do you think I like japanese guys who want to look like caucasian women?

Re: Heee, adding to the dogpile

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Fungus?

I'd go for the opposite operation myself. French genes being as they are I have half an epicanthic fold and would like the whole one. (I don't know where French almond eyes come from. My cousin Lucien has a great drunken spiel about 'You remember that ancestor we had who was governess to the Russian czarevitch?' (We did and she was.) 'Well, when she was at the Russian court she had an affair with the Chinese ambassador and we're the result.' (She didn't and we aren't.)

This is obviously like breast surgery: whatever you have you want the other.

Happy bird day!

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

eyes - greener grass and all that.

fungus - was referring to facial hair. my brain really does say that this Gou Jian is a good-looking guy (both icon and fanart), but my uh liver sez koutetsu-crack-bishie! /sighs/

Re: Happy bird day!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

(Thanks)

The fungus looks pretty good to me. not like western facial hair, all scruffy and odd-sprouty over mottled pimply skin (my *god* Uncle Ming's skin is just so-- so--)

Ah well, I'll admit it's not usual for me to find the real life article appealing either.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha. We dogpile you. Blame the trauma. XD

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

the Moral Education-version we learned in conjunction with the titular proverb in grade school

Ahh, OK. My reading comprehension is nil this morning. This is Woxin here, yes; and it's marvellous even in English and for people who didn't learn about it in school.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Woxin, yes - both the proverb itself, as well as the Xi Shi bit. But we also had (apocryphal) vignettes from the Three Kingdoms as part of said Moral Education (an actual school subject) in Mandarin.

Of course the entertainment educational value of these would have been vastly improved by corresponding illustrations of the great purple Cow Pee wielding his double blades.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

And now I must wonder if LRD young'uns receiving their Three Kingdoms moral education will see all these stories in terms of, well, the great purple Cow Pee.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

I'm probably showing my age, but when I was growing up most of us got our classics via the radio dramatizations that were broadcast during the lunch hour, and also the charming postcard-sized comic books that you could rent at the road side stalls for 1 cent each. ^__^ Though the great purple Cow Pee is hard to beat.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

As felicitas said, watching between horror and fascination. More horror, I think, because they'd bishify Gou Jian, and Chen Daoming is too beutiful to be bishied.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

They'd bishify him into a sasoi uke! Cuz he's sneaky and yin. I WILL WEEP BITTER TEARS.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You mean he's not? Yes, they would. And his only sasou is to look ever more gorgeous the lower he falls. I'm waiting for him to get his hair out of that brilliantined over-controlled top-knot, though I'll say he's one mean mutha' with it so far.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Oh oh, check out these Chinese bishified versions:

http://images.blogcn.com/2007/4/8/12/lanxuesang,20070408222320.jpg

http://photo5.hexun.com/p/2007/0330/86217/b_CCD1A5C7A0B7C9D1646AE0A2B7398361.jpg

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Duuuuuude. Bishie indeed. I can't quite make out the animal in the second one; tiger? Odd choice, if so. (梦中熊罴?)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Recognizes the quote! Recognizes the quote! Oh wow triumph triumph equal to that experienced twenty years ago, riding the street car through Chinatown and abstractedly noting 'one two three eat place waitaminnit waitaminnit I just read a Chinese sign!!!!! *faints*'-- for reasons you'd have to not be Chinese to understand.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God. Curse my fannish principles because I *so* want to iconify both of those.

But you know, I'll maintain that even the first one isn't bishified as I define bishy. It's about the absence of anything approaching that critical Japanese cultural factor, Cute. That's a very beautiful *man* (looks again: my, isn't it) but there's nothing lightweight or even pretty (YMMV) about the image. It has the mmmh 'solidity' that I associate with what little I've seen of Chinese BL art: but I think I've seen the best.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Funny you say that. Because when I first read Chinese BL and looked at the book covers I thought they were too androgynous, that the Japanese style had a little more oomph to it. But I guess times change.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I find few enough mangaka manage the richness and solidity of Chinese even on their covers, let alone the inside stories. And even the covers- no, I'll stick with my feeling that the Japanese go for the lightweight pretty feel more often than not. We won't mention what they do to the eyes.